Classical Music And The Effect On The Human Brain

[Danno]

Well when I herd this I thought it was total crap. I never listen to classical music, but ever since I started college and having to do all-nighters, I tried going on yahoo music and put on the classical music radio station. I get so much work done, that and it keeps me awake without the addition of caffeine. Maybe this is just me but their have been studies showing it "exercises" your brain and makes the synaptic response time increase. I guess it works for me. Any of you guys listen to classical music when they work on school/projects/work?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah i found it helped loads with my music a level

i find it very relaxing, playing more than listening but if i'm really wound up or upset one guaranteed way to chill me out is to get my flute out. Ian seems to like it too, he'll just laze around on the bed and read listening to me practice.

do you know what you were listening to? genre, composer, even the title of the pieces if you know them? I would imagine that different genre's of classical music would evoke different reactions in your brain.

 

[Danno]

Isaac Stern, and a symphony that I can't remember. It was "basic" classical I guess. Not the angry monotone type.

What instrument do you play?

 

[kewskills]

Classical music is good at certain times, i use it when driving stops me raging about stuff i cant control anyway.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Isaac Stern, and a symphony that I can't remember. It was "basic" classical I guess. Not the angry monotone type.

What instrument do you play?

pmsl @ 'angry monotone type'

i play the flute primarily, but also piccolo, piano, guitar, bass guitar and every sort of recorder to a reasonable level of competancy. can get a decent tune out of clarinet, sax, oboe, basson ummm probably more than that. most wind instruments mainly, hopeless with traditional stringed instruments though

 

[Danno]

Cool beans! You play a bunch more then me! I only play the family of saxaphones; Saprano, Alto, Tenor, not too much into the Basses and much.

Does playing a recorder count?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Cool beans! You play a bunch more then me! I only play the family of saxaphones; Saprano, Alto, Tenor, not too much into the Basses and much.

Does playing a recorder count?

yeah the recorder counts, when not in the hands of a bunch of 5 years olds recorders can be lovely. i like the bass recorder best

 

[The-Wolf]

listening to Mozart is supposedly the best classical music for inproving cognative skills.
there have been many studies on this subject, I even remember Tomorrows World doing a piece on it back in the early 80's

for loads of studies just google
scientific study classical music iq
and see what it throws up

 

[Miss Wiggle]

listening to Mozart is supposedly the best classical music for inproving cognative skills.
there have been many studies on this subject, I even remember Tomorrows World doing a piece on it back in the early 80's

for loads of studies just google
scientific study classical music iq
and see what it throws up

and what's best for improving spelling?

 

[Danno]

London Symphony Ochestra oh course! Pfft!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

London Symphony Ochestra oh course! Pfft!

or maybe the london symphony oRchestra

 

[Danno]

Maybe so but the Columbia Symphony Orchestra helps with typos

 

[andywg]

While I can possibly see the effects, I found I do fine with any music in the background, be it Dragonforce or Debussy.

Also, what counts as "classical" music? In studying music you normally consider the Classical era to end with the coming of prominence of Beethoven, whereupon the Romantic era commences. At the turn of the century you encounter "Modern" music.

Now Stravinsky's ballets are considered "Classical" music as they feature an orchestra, but can you really see yourself studying better while listening to the Rite of Spring?

And how far back do you go? Does Gregorian Chant music help too?

I tried Wolf's search idea and found a great review of the Mozart Effect here:

http/skepdic.com/mozart.html

It's always interesting to see how the press reports something as fact due to a single study, but ignores the fact future scientists have been unable to replicate the results (somewhat important to ensuring any conclusion drawn from the test is valid).

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I tend to assume if someone who is not really 'up' on classical music and is talking about it they mean everything from your gregorian chants etc right through to modern, people usually use it to refer to music played on more traditional classical instruments as opposed to guitars, bands etc.

That's why I asked what genre of classical music it was, meaning; classical, romantic, baroque etc, etc. I don't know maybe I'm being a snob but if you played people on this forum (which i think has a good cross section from many walks of life, age groups etc) a selection of different genre's of music such as above and asked them to describe the genre, a large proportion would describe them all as classical.

 

[jimw13uk]

When someone says Classical to me it covers anything thats orchestral based - but thats me being a classical music idjut. I listen to some classical music and find it relaxing and then other stuff is quite uplifting. The gregorian chant was an interesting comment as my fave thing to listen to just to chill and completely shut down is Red Indian music which is quite chant based.